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From the Full Moon Vineyard in Yarra Valley. The co-project of Steve Flamsteed and Dave Mackintosh. A little extra flex in this wine, some distinct personality, despite the hands-off
winemaking. Let to do its thing on lees, bottled from the big, older barrels the wine settles into over its pre-bottling life. The red clay soil site at higher-than-usual-Yarra altitude is likely
also playing a part in the distinct gras and funk, mineral charm and piercing acidity going on in this wine. Killer.

“…Grown at Gladysdale in the Yarra Valley. Aged in 500 litre puncheons. No new oak.

Total make of 260 dozen.

It’s bound and tight at first but as it breathes it really blossoms. This is a lovely chardonnay. Indeed the volume of fruit is impressive, a wealth of white peach and grapefruit flavour coming
nuanced with meal and mineral. I put this wine aside a few times and every time I returned the palate seemed to have extended out further. Notes of hazelnut and indeed fennel eventually come
forward; what impresses mostly though is the wine’s gorgeous purity.”

From a vineyard in Gladysdale, which is a nice place name. Sort of homely and happy at once.

Pie apple and spice, a whiff of struck match, maybe some lime and lemon. It’s smooth and fleshy, with an almost peppery feel in flavour and texture, ripe citrus smoothed with almond, and a long
finish that rings like a bell. Beauty. A short note for a great wine.

Rated : 95 Points

Tasted : Nov.16

Alcohol : 13%

Price : $40

Closure : Screwcap

Drink : 2016 - 2025

Visit winery website

Winemaker of the Year

Gourmet Traveller Wine has awarded Steve Flamsteed with the Winemaker of the Year award for 2016.

Wines by Steve Flamsteed and Dave Mackintosh. Very good wines, if you’ve kept up with their trajectory. Decent humans too, and a whole other aesthetic giving context to the wines, if you consider
their very deep and pronounced interest in food, art, music, contemporary culture and history (interesting people to chat to).

This wine is from a pretty bloody good vintage in Hawkes Bay too.

It’s a ferrous, graphite-like mineral riddled wine. From the outset it’s all about earth, iron filings, wet stones, before you get to black fruits, plums, cedar. Bold scents. In the palate,
medium bodied, some juiciness but more lean, trim, taut and pushes with dark fruit and graphite/stone mineral suggestions. Tannins ripple and firm up the mouth. It’s speaks eloquently of the
variety from the place, but with a wild streak that takes me back for more. It’s sensational.

Winemakers Dave Mackintosh and Steve Flamsteed continue to excel with this range of wines. If you like fancy, mod-Aus chardonnay and haven’t leapt into a bottle of Salo, you should. At the
good part of the curve too with flavour-winemaking input too. Grape gets it’s name in lights with judicious work in winery. Nicely done. From the Yarra Valley.

Great release here. Smoke, flint, ripe grapefruit, ripe apples. Good to sniff on – shows that edgy, struck match work but doesn’t forget to be full of fruit too. In the palate, lick of
flint/slate-like mineral inflection set amongst juicy fruit flavours, chalky texture and finishes in a long, stoney point of mouthwatering acidity. Smooth ride, elegant, lots going on. Classy
stuff.

What a contrast to the 2012. A true example of vintage variation can be seen when sitting the two beside one another. From a warmer and more ideal vintage than the previous, this 2013
delivers a fantastic example of what medium bodied Syrah from Hawkes Bay looks like.

Again, a dollop of Viognier (3%) was added to the ferment and only 15% new oak was used. Vibrant and juicy red fruits skip about with a dusting of black pepper. The fruit has more presence here
on the mid palate. The 2012 showing much more savoury appeal yet the earthy characters still hold form. Smooth dusty/powdery type tannins to finish. Yum! I think I just licked the glass it's that
good.

It will show its best in a year or so and will cellar for up to ten.

Very good+

Reviews by Jane Faulkner

Salo Hawkes’ Bay Syrah 2012

New Zealand

The colour of this syrah is amazing – maybe it’s the splash of viognier that has marked it a deep purple and bright, it certainly adds some florals. It’s as spicy as all get out, lots of black
pepper suggesting a cooler season, damson plums, umeboshi too but also garrigue herbs. I love the fragrance – distinctly Hawkes’ Bay and highlighted by some whole bunches in the ferment. It’s
just medium-bodied, tangy acidity with fine slightly grainy tannins, some woodsy spice and a compelling ferrous note. This reminds me of a syrah made by pinot noir specialists – hence the
fragrance and fineness. Still very youthful almost sinewy, slightly thin and needs some extra time in bottle otherwise decant it.

Tasted: February 2015

Price: $38

Closure: screwcap

Alcohol: 13%

Cellaring: 2016 to 2023

Bottles: n/a

Score: 90

Critic: Jane Faulkner

Salo Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2013

Victoria, Australia

The Salo duo, as in Steve Flamsteed and Dave Mackintosh, have again sourced fruit from Gladysdale in the cool upper Yarra. I like the 2013 vintage, a fleshier, riper one with wines for more
immediate drinking pleasure. And that’s where this chardonnay comes in. It’s pale straw and bright; an enticing nose of preserved lemon and stone fruit with ginger spice, more complex sulphides
so a whiff of match strike, smokey too. It’s not a big wine, there’s subtlety and restraint with some grip plus textural nutty, leesy nuances. It finishes a little short but there’s so much to
enjoy here I could quite easily polish off a bottle at lunch – with friends.

Tasted: February 2015

Price: $38

Closure: screwcap

Alcohol: 13.5%

Cellaring: now to 2020

Bottles: 140 dozen

Score: 93

Critic: Jane Faulkner

Reviews by Huon Hooke

We, here at SALO, are proud to announce that our uber winery has turned 6!

And look how far we have come, our wine is still stored under Steve’s house, we continue to use Gmail

BUT

We have grown up a little…

We now have a website that works (we hope), credit card facilities, and we even joined The Facebook (I think that what it is called)

What’s more exciting is our wine is getting better and more characteristic of site and us.

Not sure if our personality is sneaking into the wines a little more each year, or if the wine’s personality is sneaking into us.

So here we are …releasing the 6th Salo Chardonnay to all of our friends.